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Customer Mania! It's Never Too Late to Build a Customer-Focused Company
In Customer Mania! , Ken Blanchard, one of America's biggest bestselling authors and inspiring business leaders, writes of the key to customer service—creating a people-oriented, performance-driven, customer-first organization.
Customer service is the single most pressing problem for business managers and people in any service or sales operation, especially at the retail level. In fact, many experts believe that you build a business from the customer up. With coauthors Jim Ballard and Fred Finch, Blanchard explains why the customer is the right starting place from which to build a successful business. By drawing on examples from the world's largest restaurant company, Yum! -- owner of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's, and A&W Restaurants -- the authors explain how any company, large or small, can develop a unified, people-first, customer-oriented culture. Packed with practical insights, Customer Mania! emphasizes four critical
• Set Your Sights on the Right Target. The bottom line grows from taking care of customers and creating a motivating environment for your people.
• Treat Customers the Right Way. Determine the kind of experience you want your customers to have as they interact with every part of the company.
• Treat Employees the Right Way. Use strategies ranging from smart hiring to training and development to managing performance and creating a recognition culture.
• Build the Right Kind of Leadership. You can't do it all yourself, so let your people put their own brains to work and then support them all the way.
By relying on these concepts, businesses everywhere can cultivate passionate and engaged team members who contribute to the company's overall success. From CEO to middle manager to the person facing the consumer, Customer Mania! is a vital tool for enhancing their experience -- and their customer's.
Customer service is the single most pressing problem for business managers and people in any service or sales operation, especially at the retail level. In fact, many experts believe that you build a business from the customer up. With coauthors Jim Ballard and Fred Finch, Blanchard explains why the customer is the right starting place from which to build a successful business. By drawing on examples from the world's largest restaurant company, Yum! -- owner of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's, and A&W Restaurants -- the authors explain how any company, large or small, can develop a unified, people-first, customer-oriented culture. Packed with practical insights, Customer Mania! emphasizes four critical
• Set Your Sights on the Right Target. The bottom line grows from taking care of customers and creating a motivating environment for your people.
• Treat Customers the Right Way. Determine the kind of experience you want your customers to have as they interact with every part of the company.
• Treat Employees the Right Way. Use strategies ranging from smart hiring to training and development to managing performance and creating a recognition culture.
• Build the Right Kind of Leadership. You can't do it all yourself, so let your people put their own brains to work and then support them all the way.
By relying on these concepts, businesses everywhere can cultivate passionate and engaged team members who contribute to the company's overall success. From CEO to middle manager to the person facing the consumer, Customer Mania! is a vital tool for enhancing their experience -- and their customer's.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published November 2, 2004
10 people are currently reading
165 people want to read
About the author
Kenneth H. Blanchard
320 books1,869 followersKen Blanchard, one of the most influential leadership experts in the world, is the coauthor of the iconic bestseller, The One Minute Manager, and 60 other books whose combined sales total more than 21 million copies. His groundbreaking works have been translated into more than 27 languages and in 2005 he was inducted into Amazon’s Hall of Fame as one of the top 25 bestselling authors of all time.
Ken is also the cofounder and chief spiritual officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies®, an international management training and consulting firm that he and his wife, Margie Blanchard, began in 1979 in San Diego, California.
When he’s not writing or speaking, Ken also spends time teaching students in the Master of Science in Executive Leadership Program at the University of San Diego. Ken can be found at www.kenblanchard.com.
Ken is also the cofounder and chief spiritual officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies®, an international management training and consulting firm that he and his wife, Margie Blanchard, began in 1979 in San Diego, California.
When he’s not writing or speaking, Ken also spends time teaching students in the Master of Science in Executive Leadership Program at the University of San Diego. Ken can be found at www.kenblanchard.com.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 27, 2015
Customer Mania: It's Never Too Late to Build a Customer-Focused Company by Ken Blanchard, Jim Ballard, and Fred Finch presents a framework for creating a customer-focused organization through an actual case study - Yum! Brands - the parent company of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC. The book is neatly organized and easy to read. Although it was written in 2004, the key components of Yum! Brands customer mania philosophy as found in this book remain vital and viable even today.
Read my complete review at: http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2015...
Read my complete review at: http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2015...
November 4, 2019
Great reminder of how to build a company
Great book that help you have the right focus on both employees and customers. Tons of practical wisdom that can be applied to every day life.
Great book that help you have the right focus on both employees and customers. Tons of practical wisdom that can be applied to every day life.
April 15, 2019
Buenísimo ¡imperdible¡ todo aquel que trabaje y/lidere equipos de servicio a clientes debe leerlo
September 16, 2021
An average book on how to build a customer-focused company. I didn't find it especially insightful. It uses Yum! Brands (Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut) as an example, explaining and evaluating their shift to being more customer-focused.
I skimmed it, focusing on Step 2 of 4: treat customers the right way.
Summary
1. Set your sights on the right target: triple bottom line (profit, customers, people/employees). Aim to be provider of choice (create raving fans), employer of choice (have people who are customer maniacs), investment of choice (cash registers are ringing). People and results, not either/or.
2. Treat customers the right way. Don't treat them as a bother. Create Customer Mania! culture. Make customers Raving Fans (ones who will brag about you).
3. Treat people/employees the right way. You need excited, passionate people to have Raving Fans and Customer Mania! culture. Live by Golden Rule; take care of people so they take care of customers. Empower people.
4. Have right kind of leadership. Leaders are only as good as people. Leaders must set vision and direction, but move as quickly as possible to bottom of hierarchy where they can support and serve.
Notes
"Profit is the applause you get from taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your people."
Listen to complaints without being defensive. Defending what you've done will only irritate them. When they're upset, all customers want is to be heard. Research shows that if you listen in a non-defensive, attentive way, then ask, "Is there any way we can win back your loyalty?" 80% of the time you'll have already done it.
Flip the traditional pyramid hierarchy so the front-line people are at the top. There, they can be responsible (able to respond to customers). Leaders serve and are responsible to front-line people.
Permit front-line people to soar like eagles (make decisions and fix customer problems) rather than quack like ducks (citing policy in defense of inaction). Example: Nordstrom didn't have product customer wanted, so salesperson went to another store to buy it for customer.
Empower front-line people to solve customer problems on the spot. Give each person a budget to solve problems without supervisor approval. 0.5 - 1% of customers will still rip you off, but team members will feel respected and empowered, and customers will see you as much more responsive. This is a competitive advantage.
"Unless you're jeopardizing somebody's health or safety, whenever company policies and procedures conflict with what the customer wants, say yes to the customer."
I skimmed it, focusing on Step 2 of 4: treat customers the right way.
Summary
1. Set your sights on the right target: triple bottom line (profit, customers, people/employees). Aim to be provider of choice (create raving fans), employer of choice (have people who are customer maniacs), investment of choice (cash registers are ringing). People and results, not either/or.
2. Treat customers the right way. Don't treat them as a bother. Create Customer Mania! culture. Make customers Raving Fans (ones who will brag about you).
3. Treat people/employees the right way. You need excited, passionate people to have Raving Fans and Customer Mania! culture. Live by Golden Rule; take care of people so they take care of customers. Empower people.
4. Have right kind of leadership. Leaders are only as good as people. Leaders must set vision and direction, but move as quickly as possible to bottom of hierarchy where they can support and serve.
Notes
"Profit is the applause you get from taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your people."
Listen to complaints without being defensive. Defending what you've done will only irritate them. When they're upset, all customers want is to be heard. Research shows that if you listen in a non-defensive, attentive way, then ask, "Is there any way we can win back your loyalty?" 80% of the time you'll have already done it.
Flip the traditional pyramid hierarchy so the front-line people are at the top. There, they can be responsible (able to respond to customers). Leaders serve and are responsible to front-line people.
Permit front-line people to soar like eagles (make decisions and fix customer problems) rather than quack like ducks (citing policy in defense of inaction). Example: Nordstrom didn't have product customer wanted, so salesperson went to another store to buy it for customer.
Empower front-line people to solve customer problems on the spot. Give each person a budget to solve problems without supervisor approval. 0.5 - 1% of customers will still rip you off, but team members will feel respected and empowered, and customers will see you as much more responsive. This is a competitive advantage.
"Unless you're jeopardizing somebody's health or safety, whenever company policies and procedures conflict with what the customer wants, say yes to the customer."
February 22, 2014
Pretty nice book about having passion on what it is you do and seeking ways to get better. Unfortunately for Yum! Brands, seems KFC will always be slow service no matter what change practices are implemented. (For health advocates, perhaps seen as a good thing of promoting the idea of how KFC is everything you would not want.) Certainly high expectations that despite the many improvements made (probably would say it too almost a decade later), Blanchard believed the high marks could still have much room for improvement on achieving excellence.
Was interesting how the book was published not long after YUM bought A&W Restaurants and the Long John Silver franchise concepts which have since been jettisoned as supposedly not integral to the business. (As far as any health message goes, probably was preferred by them anyway to wash their hands of Long John's deep-fried products.. even if I had the good luck of getting a meal minimally fried when I was there a couple years back.)
Was interesting how the book was published not long after YUM bought A&W Restaurants and the Long John Silver franchise concepts which have since been jettisoned as supposedly not integral to the business. (As far as any health message goes, probably was preferred by them anyway to wash their hands of Long John's deep-fried products.. even if I had the good luck of getting a meal minimally fried when I was there a couple years back.)
June 25, 2014
This book has really changed my perspective, not only in my career; but also in my day-to-day decisions.I just refuse the idea of Ken Blanchard being an Author of Motivational-Business-Books. I'd rather prefer to describe his books as Methodical ones. And this very book has strengthened this belief. If I'd ever get a chance to make this book educated in schools I'd never let it go.
In each step of the illustrated steps in the book I was able to compare the ideal customer-focused environment, to the task-and document-focused environments which unfortunately are most adopted by the companies, though they have become relic of the past.
I was even more attracted to read about the theories attached with Ken's personal experience, than reading about Yum! and its coaches - The coaches overly accentuated the positive even to the readers - but Ken's experience were (I feel) inherently positive.
In each step of the illustrated steps in the book I was able to compare the ideal customer-focused environment, to the task-and document-focused environments which unfortunately are most adopted by the companies, though they have become relic of the past.
I was even more attracted to read about the theories attached with Ken's personal experience, than reading about Yum! and its coaches - The coaches overly accentuated the positive even to the readers - but Ken's experience were (I feel) inherently positive.
March 15, 2009
One of my favorite business motivation books, Customer Mania gives some examples along with related stories about companies going above and beyond to please its customers. The suggestions are so simple, yet so dynamic give today's profits-first, service-last approach so many companies are absorbed in. Let's face it, America's lost faith in companies taking care of them after the sale. I think these same ideals can be applied outside of the customer service world. It's like, really, how far are you willing to go to take care of people after you get what you set out for? Ken Blanchard knows successful businesses but his ideas can be applied just as much on a personal level. (190 pages)
January 13, 2017
An interesting book which began with a customer focus and gradually delved into many other crucial aspects of building a great customer-focused organisation. So beautifully, the book delivers how different elements/ stakeholders from the ecosystem impact the making of a customer-focused organisation and why/ how the focus should be equally on the internal and external customers.
The book goes much beyond than just being a case study for Yum and comes our as a reference/ ready reckoner for anyone interested in building customer centricity in their organisation.
The book exceeded my expectations !
The book goes much beyond than just being a case study for Yum and comes our as a reference/ ready reckoner for anyone interested in building customer centricity in their organisation.
The book exceeded my expectations !
November 26, 2012
Some good advice on how organizations ought to treat their customers. While a lot of the examples and therefore the focus is on the restaurant business, other sectors are also represented and ideas can be used in public or other organizations as well. As with most other books on this topic I wish more concrete examples were given rather than generalizations.
January 6, 2017
After reading this, I felt more of a "meh" than a "Yum!". Perhaps, I read it too quickly (a couple of sittings) or wasn't invested enough (not in the restaurant business) because no lightbulbs went off in my head. I'm struggling to say anything about this one--positive or negative--which says more than enough.
February 11, 2008
How much customer service matters
What are large companies are doing for their customers
All about YUM! company
Details about employees recognition, with other employment issues
THE BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ!
What are large companies are doing for their customers
All about YUM! company
Details about employees recognition, with other employment issues
THE BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ!
August 13, 2008
I don't read a lot of these rah-rah workplace books, but this one is pretty interesting, and really does give some insight into what companies are trying to do (some successfully, some not).
June 13, 2009
A great book for anyone dealing with a "customer." Designed to facilitate and create effective mission statement and subsequent objectives. Very applicable to many parts of life.
August 4, 2009
This book was okay, I think it woould be more helpful for a ceo or exec. in a corporation to read.
March 2, 2013
Well illustration of Pepsico Group customer handling and Leadership.
April 17, 2013
the best book for managers and supervisors
April 28, 2013
A helpful, thought-provoking book. I will try to remember to use Mr. Blanchard's principles in the workplace.
August 29, 2014
This book identifies the key to CS as creating a people oriented, performance driven , customer first organization. It 's experts are experts in the restaurant business.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews